I don’t know when it happened or really how but I lost my ability to create art.
I have always been an artist at heart. To create and curate is liberating and livening. I love to see the way simple strokes of paint and words and phrases and photographs and frames come together to convey something so meaningful it makes you stop and think. But somewhere in my timeline I lost the ability to connect the dots and produce a manifestation of my inner thoughts.
I came to this realization on a recent visit to the Scottsdale Center for the Arts. I was there to film a project for my job and it was the first time in a long time that I was able to focus on a piece of work. The exhibit was a wall art installation of three artists coming together on the impact of humans on the world. As I took in the piece and looked at each carefully thought out paint stroke and pencil sketch, I was reminded that I used to have a dream of creating something just like it. I used to dream of being a renowned artist whose work was displayed in museums and galleries.
And I had forgotten about that dream. It wasn't like I had given up on it but more so let it fade away as my creative side dwindled down. When I came to this realization I was confused because it wasn't like I had lost love for it or my passion slipped away, it was something else.
Then it hit me. As my fear of vulnerability has grown, it has prevented me from creating those meaningful pieces. I can’t dig deep to produce a work that reveals something of myself if I am incapable of admitting it to myself.
As my therapy sessions have unearthed truths about who I am, I think I am regaining my ability to dig deep within. Or better said, I am learning how to express myself in a way I never thought I could.
Maybe I’m trying to find a pathway in the mess of my life but I think for the first time in the last three years, I actually can see myself living past my expectation of what I thought my life was going to be.
I never really thought about where I would end up after Yale so when I didn’t get in, I lost sight of life at all.
It’s 1 a.m. right now and all of these thoughts are sporadic and nonlinear but they are all just my way of saying that I think I’m having another breakthrough and healing to the point of invorgation and motivation.